The No. 1 Employee Benefit That No One's Talking About

One in two employees have left a job to get away from a manager and improve their overall life at some point in their career, according to Gallup's State of the American Manager report.

Bad managers are abundant, and they leave an impression -- that's what makes movies like Office Space so funny. Almost everyone can relate to the sense of dread about coming to work when a manager makes an otherwise good job feel like a dead end.

But the effects of bad management reach farther than just engagement -- they can actually undermine your company's efforts to help employees improve their health.

From the State of the American Manager report,

"Having a bad manager is often a one-two punch: Employees feel miserable while at work, and that misery follows them home, compounding their stress and putting their well-being in peril."

That 10%, when put in managerial roles, has a strong natural ability to:

Put the right people in the right roles

Create a culture of clear accountability

Engage employees with a compelling vision

Motivate every employee individually

Coach and develop their people by focusing on their strengths

Make decisions based on productivity, not politics

Build trust and dialogue with their people about both work and life outside of work

According to the State of the American Manager report,

"18% of those currently in management roles demonstrate a high level of talent for managing others, while another 20% show a basic talent for it. Combined, they contribute about 48% higher profit to their companies than average managers do."

2. Select and promote managers for the right reasons.

The two things that usually earn a promotion to management have nothing to do with great management ability: tenure and mastery of a previous, non-managerial role.

Effective people management requires a talent set of its own, and someone who shined in a previous role may not transition seamlessly to a managerial role.

From the State of the American Manager report:

"Gallup finds that companies fail to choose the [managerial] candidate with the right talent for the job 82% of the time."

While development can be effective, the most effective method for getting great managers is rigor and accountability when finding, hiring and promoting people with natural management abilities.

These great managers can come from inside your organization or outside, and they may often be hiding in plain sight in another role.

Gallup has studied, tested and defined the best method for selecting people with natural managerial talents. Use our tools to place the right people in management roles and see major improvements all across your business -- most significantly, in employee health.